Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, and so on. Such networks, which are usually multiple access networks, support communications for multiple users by sharing the available network resources. One example of such a network is the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN). The UTRAN is the radio access network (RAN) defined as a part of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), a third generation (3G) mobile phone technology supported by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). UMTS, which is the successor to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) technologies, currently supports various air interface standards, such as Wideband-Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA), Time Division-Code Division Multiple Access (TD-CDMA), and Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA). UMTS also supports enhanced 3G data communications protocols, such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), which provides higher data transfer speeds and capacity to associated UMTS networks.
A wireless multiple-access communication system can support communication for multiple wireless terminals. Each terminal communicates with one or more base stations via transmissions on the forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink (DL)) refers to the communication link from the base stations to the terminals, and the reverse link (or uplink (UL)) refers to the communication link from the terminals to the base stations. This communication link may be established via a single-in-single-out, multiple-in-signal-out or a multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) system.
A wireless terminal may include a universal integrated circuit card (UICC) or integrated circuit card (ICC) (hereafter “UICC”). For example, in a GSM network, the UICC contains a SIM application, and in a UMTS network, it contains the USIM application. In an IS-95/CDMA2000 network, the UICC contains a CSIM application. A UICC may contain several applications, making it possible for the same smart card to give access to GSM, UMTS, and IS-95/CDMA2000 networks. A card with all three features is called a removable user identity card (R-UIM).
A terminal with a UICC may support contemporaneous or concurrent communications with multiple radio access technologies (RATs) through multiple baseband modems. For example, a dual baseband modem environment may exist in which each baseband modem supports the same RAT or different RATs. In such an environment, commands issued by a UICC (e.g., proactive commands) need to get routed to the correct baseband modem. The UICC originated commands may include proactive commands that are defined with respect to card application toolkit (CAT) specifications (ETST TS 102.223 and 3GPP 31.111). In another example, 3GPP2 C.S0035-A section 6.4 for CDMA Card Application Toolkit lists a number of proactive commands. The CAT provides mechanisms which allow applications, existing in the UICC, to interact and operate with any terminal which supports the specific mechanism(s) required by the application. A system and method that provide routing logic for handling the communications between multiple baseband modems and a UICC is desired.